Star Forged
by Djinn Industries
Summary: After a star system disappears, disconnected from the galaxies, a man and his loyal wing-men are pulled in between an invading race and the end of society.


Prologue : First Sighting  
>Location : Rancer VII - Moon 17 - Roden Shipyards Warehouse<p>

The day began like any other, get up at 6:00, report to the loading dock at 8:00, then prepare orders till 13:00 when he could begin his own work mining ice off the belts around Rancer II. Everyone sees Rancer as one of the toughest systems in New Eden to live in, and most are right. A lot of the capsuleers go there just to prey on the weak passing through , and those dumb enough to try and take refuge there. The lack of CONCORD means no retaliation or cosquence. So really, it comes down to the best ships and pilots.

For him, its easy to survive. He was not a capsuleer, so if they killed him, there would be no logs, they would receive no kill mail for their personal boards. He has no bounty or ship of any value, yet without men like him, there would be no one to assemble the ships that the capsuleers use to kill each other.

It was near 14:00 when he finished assembling that Abaddon class Battleship. So he ran to his Procurer quickly, latching in, and waited for the docking procedures to finish releasing his ship. As the bay doors opened, revealing the stars, he accelerated. He was then blinded by that damned anomaly. It showed up about a week ago, and just kept getting brighter and brighter.  
>He warped to it one day, picking nothing up on his scanners, it as no mass, no volume. Evidently, it is not there, yet it is so fucking bright. But, a lot can happen in a week. Everyone kind of ignored it, they just got used to it. He set his ship to align towards Rancer II, calibrated his overview so that he would get no surprised while mining.<p>

"Warp Drive Active." Aura read out from his console as he took off near the planet. The star in the distance quickly zoomed passed his display. At only 3 au/s , it could seem like forever to get from place to place. His Procurer class mining barge had always kept him safe. Four medium slots allowed him to strengthen his shield output and strength and two low slots allowed for dual warp core stabilizers. Just what anyone needed if they were to mine in lowsec.

Frequently, he checked his directional scanner, making sure no one was waiting for him. Seeing that it was clear, he soon arrived at his bookmark. He took a few moments to position himself within the glaciers, enough where anyone hostile who came in would have to navigate the glaciers just to get inside warp disruptor range. He still left himself aligned to a safe spot, so far out, one would need combat probes, a blood hound, and an Ouija board just to get within 1 au.

Locking onto one of the closer chunks of ice, he began to harvest it, 3 minutes a cycle, damn it took forever. He would think to himself, soon he would have enough to hire a freighter to grab it and haul it to Jita for him. As bright as the strip mining laser was, off in the distance he could still see that damned anomaly. It was brighter than ever, but it would dim a bit every now and then.

There, there it was again, it was going faster now. Then he realized, he couldn't see it from this belt yesterday. It was growing bigger, pulsating. It kind of hurt to stare at it, but it was so beautiful he couldn't look away. And then it all went dark, not all at once though. First, it seemed to be transparent, like a large spherical mass. It was there, but it was see through, though still very bright. At the center is where it became solid, like a dark blue gas was emitting from the center and filling the anomaly.

He could see lightning sparking from the center, which he thought impossible. At least at this distance, but there he was, looking at it. The gas from the center made the anomaly dark, but still visible. Then as if it burst, a wave of the dark blue gas erupted in all directions. He was in awe, but his excitement quickly changed back to curiosity as the anomaly started to grow, then part in the middle. It was then that he realized that it was not an anomaly, it was a gate way.

A long, thick ship came out. It's shape was hard to describe. His directional scanner picked it up at 4au away and calculated it's mass at over 6 million kg. That was almost three times the size of an Avatar class Titan. He was struck with fear and he could barely speak. The hull was not recognizable by his eye, but he didn't have time to check records before it began to align. The black vessel turned towards Rancer VII and stopped moving after facing the gas giant.

From what he would describe as the front began to shift, small sections began to expand as what could only be described as a blue ball of light began to materialize. His stomach began to sink as his mind gathered what was about to happen. It was only about a minute since it appeared, but in his mind it seemed like an hour and he wished it was longer.

The ball of blue energy was shot towards the planet, pushed by a large stream of energy which ended from the ship and eventually was out of sight. After reconfiguring the front of his vessel, the ship began to turn towards Rancer II, this time the whole ship began to shift. It seemed as if the ship was breaking apart. A large shock wave could be seen expanding from Rancer VII. He thought it impossible as the CONCORD traffic advisory warning appeared on his NEOCOM.

"Alert, Alert, due to unknown reasons, all traffic to and from Rancer will be delayed for an undetermined amount of time, due to unknown acts of aggression. All gates leading to and from Rancer will now commence shutdown, to be completed in 10 minutes."  
>The alert continued and began a countdown, but he was too compelled to watch the shock wave emit from where Rancer VII used to be. He searched his overview for his home station of Roden's Warehouse, knowing it wouldn't be there, but still he searched. He looked up to see the disconnected parts of the ship enter warp. That's when he snapped to and aligned warp to the Cridere gate. He could see the vessels warping in as his ship began to leave the belt.<p>

The local communication channels were filled with pilots screaming for help from anyone who would respond. He arrived near the gate, but before his warp bubble collapsed, he would see wreck after wreck on his overview. Their ships, even though their mass matched those of a battlecrusier sized vessel, didn't register by any name.

He landed 5000 meters off the gate, too far away to activate it. He began to approach the gate, but didn't get far before he heard his system go off. He expected a few seconds at least for them to lock on before they attacked, but as soon as the sensors went off, his hull was already being breached.

On first instinct, he ejected his pod. It was only seconds before he saw his procurer blown to shreds. He activated the gate just as his sensors went off, and this time was lucky to be jumping before his pod met the same fate as his procurer.


End file.
